Radiant is just now breaking out of a tough year. Its long-delayed new album, We Hope You Win, will finally see the light of day this weekend at its CD release shows. As it turns out, the album will be released independently, after the band took quite a bit of time to shop it around.
At last glance, the band had a major publicist behind them, A&R people sniffing around, TV show appearances ... and then nothing. Singer Levi Smith explains that while they were excited about the potential of the album, "at the end of the day, we were still not putting out the music."
Here's more from Smith:Q: Why did you finally decide to release the new record independently?
A: Well, after a grueling year and a half of shopping the record, we just couldn't wait any longer. There was so much interest from labels wanting to release this record, but no one that we wanted to partner with would step up with what we needed to make that happen.
Q: What have you learned from having a bunch of hype surrounding the band, then having it fizzle out a little?
A: There is always a lot of excitement when there is something new going on, I guess. We used to play Dallas more than we do now, and we used to hang out in Dallas more than we do now, so that had a lot to do with it. It's hard to stay active in going out in Dallas when you're out of town every weekend.
Q: How do you plan on achieving your goals of doing this professionally now?
A: We just want to keep writing bigger and better music – and lots of prayer. Not releasing this record and touring for so long has seemed to hold up the writing process a bit, as well as losing our bass player Jon Schoemaker in February.
Q: You originally gained a fan base in the Christian rock scene. Why did you decide to not go that route?
A: Christian rock was never our intent. I don't think we were ever in that scene. We definitely did not want to get stuck in a genre where only certain people listen to our music. Not that that is a bad thing, we just felt it wasn't for us. All of us still have our faith, and it's still a driving force in our music.
Q: With such serious music, does the band have a good sense of humor?
A: Oh yeah. We laugh a lot. It's the only way to live. Our band is made of people who like to have a good time. Some of my greatest and happiest memories have been in our overnight drives from one show to the next listening to [guitarist Dragan Jakovijevic's] impression of something, like a professor from Harvard trying to eliminate his Bosnian accent, while [drummer] Daniel [Hopkins] might be peeing in a bottle.
Q: Some of your songs are available as ringtones. None of the band members have any of those as their ringtones, do they?
A: I hope not. I just got a phone yesterday that can actually download ringtones, so maybe I will look into it.
Paul Salfen
Radiant (left) performs at 5 p.m. Saturday at Good Records for a free in-store performance. 1808 Lower Greenville Ave. 214-752-4663. Later that night, there's a CD release show with Hendrick, Hero Factor and Auto Escape at the Granada Theater, 3524 Lower Greenville Ave.
8 p.m. $10. 214-824-9933. Hear some music at www.myspace.com/
radiantmusic.
